ENERGY INDEPENDENCE: HOW TRUMP DID IT

Curtis Ellis notes U.S. now has OPEC over an oil barrel, not the reverse

America First is the guiding principle of President Donald J. Trump.

America First puts the interests of American citizens ahead of “greater global integration” when it comes to trade agreements.

America First puts the needs of American workers over those of foreign job seekers and cheap-labor-seeking corporations when it comes to immigration.

America First puts a stronger and more secure America over “nation building” when it comes to foreign policy.

America First means raising the wages and fortunes of Americans.

America First has made America the world’s No. 1 oil producer.

While Democrats natter on about an imaginary Green New Deal, promising to outlaw the energy that fuels our power plants, homes, vehicles, workshops and offices, President Donald J. Trump has engineered a boom in oil and natural gas, the lifeblood essential to our way of life and our economy.

It didn’t happen by accident, and it didn’t happen a moment too soon.

How did it happen?

President Trump reversed government policies that crippled American energy production. Those policies emerged from precincts inhabited by extreme environmental fundamentalists who idealize pre-industrial society, policies that were sold under false pretenses to the extent they were revealed at all.

Washington swamp critters are stealthy creatures, bypassing public debate and even Congress itself to enact rules and regulations that erase our borders in the name of “immigration reform,” hand control of our economy to foreign bureaucrats under the banner of “free trade” and “combating climate change,” and block development under the aegis of “due process.”

President Trump’s America First Energy Plan scrapped “directives” and regulations from the Obama administration that constrained energy production and streamlined the federal approval process for energy infrastructure.

Thanks to President Trump’s America First policy, our fate and fortunes, our economy’s expansion or recession, inflation or stability, no longer depend on the whims of oil sheiks in the sands of Arabia or oligarchs in the snows of Moscow.

Energy independence, a dream American presidents have sought since the 1970s, has become a reality under President Trump. Who ever thought we would be able to say, “Buy American” about oil?

Generations of Americans were taught foreign potentates had us over an oil barrel. That’s no longer the case.

OPEC, the Organization of Oil Producing Countries, the global cartel of oil, is cutting back production to raise prices as we move into spring and the peak driving season approaches with Memorial Day.

In addition, President Trump is warning OPEC against further production cuts.

Congress laid down a marker, too. The House Judiciary Committee approved the NOPEC Act, the No Oil Producing and Exporting Cartels Act. It would allow the Justice Department to file an antitrust lawsuit against OPEC under the Sherman Antitrust Act, the law used to break up John D. Rockefeller’s Standard Oil Trust over a hundred years ago.